2 Years!

Hello my friends! It has been a looooooooooooooong time since I've visited this little blog of ours. Wow, there is much catching up to do. But for now, I'm going to ease back into this thing with a little post dedicated to the love of my life. Two years ago he put a ring on my finger and asked me to be his FOREVER. Oh how I love you Ryan Allan Cooley! You're my best friend and the greatest husband I could ask for. Here's to forever babe!

Ryan's aunts checking out the ring...

Can you tell we were pretty happy?!?! 

(Just ignore Ty, he's pretending not to notice Kristie and her picture taking....)

Another Three-Day Weekend

The much-anticipated three-day weekend has come and gone in a blur. Friday night we celebrated Ryan's Aunt Ilene's birthday with a get-together dinner at Chuck-A-Rama.
Saturday Ryan had to work as usual. I used the time while he was gone to get our Bountiful Basket, finish re-watching the TV show "Alias" and clean up the house. When he got home, we kind of just bummed around until going to watch Jaden play basketball. Once that was over, we went home and got ready for our Saturday night Stake Conference meeting. It was an excellent meeting. I don't know why so many people choose to miss it. It's more often than not the best part of Stake Conference.
Sunday was the General Session of Stake Conference and one that I will never forget. My dad was ordained as the new stake patriarch! Wow! I don't even know how to put into words my feelings about this. It's pretty awesome! After conference and my dad's ordination, we had a family dinner at my parents' and then hung around until the finale of Downton Abbey came on at eight. By the time we got home at 10ish that night, we were exhausted.
Monday Ryan had to go to work so I spent the day grading and watching Monk on Netflix. Once Ryan was off we went to Grandma Erm's for Monday night dinner with the family.
Now, I'm back at school, ready to make the final push to the end of the trimester. Eight more days, then it's hello third tri!
Really, I'll be happy when I finally get to go home tonight after my night class. It's been a tiring past couple of days and I've got some R and R to catch up on. :)

Nothin' much

There's not a whole lot going on in the Cooley household as of late. We're busy with work, school, church, family, etc... Our weeks are pretty much back to normal, though we count the days until the next break from school and work so we can spend time with each other doing something FUN! Next break: President's Day. Can't wait!
So until then we'll keep plugging along as we study, work, and enjoy this adventure we call LIFE!

Three-Day Weekend

Last weekend was a three-day weekend for both Ryan and me, and we sure used it up well! We kind of kicked things off Friday night with our traditional Friday Night Dinner and Fringe/Blue Bloods viewing at Grandma Erm's. We made hamburger helper--I was out of creative dinner ideas--and had ice cream for desert. The finale of Fringe aired and it turned out pretty good! Now we've got to go back and re-watch it all from the beginning. We followed it up with a really good episode of Blue Bloods. We love that show! After all, it's got Tom Selleck in it, what could be better?!

There's only one way to cook a brace of coneys...

On New Year's Day, we got up sorta early and ventured out into the cold to do a little rabbit hunting. It was Ryan's first time. He'd been wanting to go out for a while and once we saw that the Christmas Eve snowstorm had turned out to be a pretty good one, we decided we'd do it. We picked up my dad and brother then headed out. Heath and Dylan met up with us at our decided location. There wasn't a plethora of rabbits but we did manage to bring home five! Ryan shot his first-ever rabbits (2) and I got my first-ever rabbit as well. And we had A LOT of fun doing it! I think we got Ryan hooked on this little New Year's Day adventure....

P.S. Heath convinced us to take them home to eat. We haven't cooked 'em yet but we're planning a little rabbit stir-fry next week!

Something old...something new...

We decided it was time to make the blog officially "ours".  Over the past week or so I've transferred all the posts that have been made on my old blog since we got married. So Welcome! to our new blog, and in case you missed it, here's the last post from the old one:

Good Morning! It's freezing outside and I'm at school holding parent-teacher conferences. My goal this go-round is 25% attendance. I'm almost there too, only one more visit to go!!
Things are going well in the Cooley household. Ryan has one week of the new semester under his belt. He seems to like his classes so that's exciting. I went back to school on the 3rd of January and promptly lost my voice for five or six days. Needless to say, teaching is very difficult when you can't verbally communicate with your students. Luckily I got it back in time for a visit from my superintendent! We're both still teaching in our ward--Ryan in Sunday School and me on the 4th Sunday in Relief Society. We both like our callings and they're pretty stress-free. It's good to be getting back into the swing of things now that the holiday season has drawn to a close. We were tremendously blessed this past Christmas and are so grateful for everything we have. We're excited for this new year and the many--I'm sure--adventures it'll bring! So stay tuned!!!

P.S. To keep up on the Cooley Clan, follow us now at ryanandamandacooley.blogspot.com.

A Seasonal Update

Happy Holidays!
Since I last posted, Ryan and I celebrated our 1st Anniversary, Ryan finished Fall Semester, I started a new session at Adult Ed, we saw the Hobbit (really good!), visited Salt Lake, enjoyed a wonderful Christmas, and went to Les Miserables (also really good!) for my dad's birthday. Here are the details with the pictures:

 A left-over from the last post: Our Christmas tree for this year...we went to Idaho with Heath, Sheila and the kids and harvested it. It was extra tall which meant lots of boughs for decorating!!!

 

Our 1st Anniversary fell on the Monday of Finals Week for Ryan so we celebrated with a nice dinner at home. Ryan cooked (steak, "Uncle Kevin" potatoes, green beans, green salad, and wedding cake (which was still super tasty!) for desert), we watched Home Alone, and exchanged presents. I got Ryan a watch and he got me a beautiful bracelet. The Cooleys gave us a Precious Moments figurine that's just adorable! It was a great night!

Tasty!!!

 Cake anyone?

(It was still super moist and tasted almost as good as our wedding day. Definitely recommend Shaffer Bakery!!!)

 Mmmmm.....yummy.....

Anybody have the time?

Oh...so precious!!!

 After finals were over, Ryan and I took my mom and dad to Salt Lake for a little pre-Christmas excursion. We did lunch at Maddox on the way, stopped at Smith and Edwards, then wandered the new City Creek Center. Dinner was at Siegfried's Delicatessen (so tasty! and I'm so happy we finally got my dad down there to eat with us!!!) and then we finished off the night with a walk around Temple Square to see the lights. The last time I saw the lights with my parents I was a little girl. We had a great time just getting to be with my mom and dad. We're happy things worked out to make it happen!

  On Christmas Eve, with a lot of help from my mum, I finally finished the tree skirt and stockings I've been working on for months. I did the design, all the embroidery, and just about all the sewing. I think they turned out sooo cute!

There are still more Christmas pictures to upload. Hopefully we'll get them up soon!

A Pinterest Failure: A Tale in the Life of Ryan and Amanda

I'm a big fan of Pinterest. I get a lot of ideas from there and for the most part, what I've tried has turned out pretty good. However, it seems that when there's a Pinterest failure, it's usually big! Case in point: Ryan and I planned to have brownies and ice cream for our Sunday Santa Cinema treat. (See the previous post if you're not sure what Sunday Santa Cinema is.) When we got home from eating dinner with my parents, I had a big, nasty headache. So as we started the movie--this week it was Home Alone--I promptly fell asleep hoping my headache would go away. The last part I remember seeing was Kevin realizing he'd "made [his] family disappear." Sometime during the movie, Ryan got up to go make the treat. We wanted to try making the brownies on our waffle iron. I'd seen it on Pinterest so why not give it a try? Cue epic failure. According to Ryan, remember I'm asleep at this point, the brownies pulled apart when he tried to separate the waffle maker once they were cooked. He even tried a different kind of waffle maker but ended up with the same terrible results. To salvage the rest of the batter, he put it in a small cake pan and baked it up. When all was said and done and I finally woke up, Ryan presented me with a tasty brownie sundae and the tale of how waffle makers and brownie batter don't mix. At least the sundae was delicious! And the funny thing is, we went over to his parents last night where he shared the tale and guess what?! Allan informed us that no, you cannot make brownies in a waffle maker. The moral of my story is that sometimes Pinterest is great and other times it's a complete bust. But hey at least the things that don't turn out usually make for funny stories! And if you've tried it and it worked, please enlighten us. Otherwise, know that it probably won't work. :)

What have the Cooleys been up to?

It's been a busy past couple of months. School started and is well under way. I can't believe I'm two units away from being done with first trimester already! My classes are pretty good this year. They do have their moments and sometimes I just can't take the incessant talking! Would you just please be quiet? But on the whole school is going pretty good. It's definitely a step above last year!
Ryan is busy with classes and work. We finally broke down and got the internet at our place which I think has been a big help! We spent a lot of time running around trying to get his homework done. It's crazy how much school relies on the internet these days.
Our families are doing well and we work hard at balancing time between the Downs and the Cooleys. I'm sure that both sides would prefer they get us more but we're doing our best to have "us" time too.
We're excited for fall weather and everything it brings with it. We celebrated Halloween with my family and the traditional chili dinner. It was pretty low-key but we did manage to dress up! (See the picture on the sidebar...)I'm looking forward now to decorating for Thanksgiving and then Christmas!! We're 8 days away from our 11-month anniversary. I can't believe how time has flown. Pretty soon a whole year will have gone by.
One new thing we've started is going up to Ryan's grandma Erm's place on Friday nights. We cook dinner for the three of us and then sit down to watch our two favorite shows--Fringe and Blue Bloods. Grandma doesn't care about the shows but I think she likes the company. We enjoy it as well--it's pretty relaxing and a fun way to spend the evening!
We both have teaching callings in the ward. Ryan teaches gospel doctrine every other week and I teach the fourth Sunday lessons in Relief Society. I enjoy teaching and LOVE that my mom comes to hear me give me lesson just about every month! That's pretty special!
Well I guess that's about it for the Cooley Clan! Twenty days until Thanksgiving! Hurray!!!!

Wow!

I know I've been a slacker blogger for a while now. I've made several attempts at trying to give it a facelift as of late but it wouldn't work so I just became more and more frustrated with the whole thing! Needless to say, the months of pictures and information I want to add has gone undone because of my inability to make simple changes to how this whole thing looks! Anyway, as you can probably see, they've been taken care of and I am now ready to download a bunch of pictures from various sources and hopefully get caught up here. After all, I've got great incentive--Christmas is coming and I've got gifts that require pictures so I've gotta download them anyway. Might as well do a little blogging here as well right?

P.S. Ryan only realized last night that we had a blog...yeah, that about sums the whole thing up!

Back to School

If you read my blog does anyone actually read it? then you'll know that the last post I made was on the last day of the 2011-2012 school year. And now here I am, one day away from having my first day of the 2012-2013 school year over with. What'd I do with my summer you might ask? I have no idea!!! Well I do, but it seems like it sure was a whirlwind and was far too short. Now I'm back to school with my room all ready to welcome my kiddies. I'm still at North Cache teaching Ancient World History. I've added three more sections this year YAY!!! so I'll be a bit busier. I moved to a new classroom and we'll see how that works out. I just can't believe it's here again! And to boot, my adorable husband is off on a week-long hunting trip which will conclude on Saturday. Needless to say that though it's only Wednesday, I feel like I've already lived through the week trying to accomplish a lot of things on my own. Boy I miss Ryan!!! It's strange to come home and be in an empty place all evening. Did I mention that I miss him? I'll be glad when this week is over so we can get back into a routine. Ryan starts school again on Monday and we'll be back to the work/school grindstone. Good-bye summer, hello fall! Hopefully being back in the swing of things will give me a chance to catch up on this blogging thing....

The Last Days

Tomorrow at this time I'll be able to say that I successfully completed my first year as a teacher! It's been a crazy year, stressful at times, but also very good. And I went from Miss Downs to Mrs. Cooley in addition to everything else! How great is that?!
I have to say that I'll miss some of my students--there were some really great kids. Others I won't miss at all...but I've learned a lot, changed my curriculum a number of times, and discovered that Ancient World History isn't so bad!
Bring on next year!!! Well, after a nice long summer break that is! :)

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a fun Memorial Day weekend! Friday we used up some coupons for free Chik-Fil-A, bought Ryan more new clothes why is he so easy to buy for? and met up with Allan, Kristie, and Jaden for our first Slurpees of the summer season. Saturday Ryan had to work so I hung with my parents until he got off. We then hit up the sale at Al's and got some new bike helmets, went shopping for clothes for me a total bust! and then came home. I do have to tell you about dinner that night though: I'd made rhubarb syrup earlier in the week and couldn't figure out what to actually do with it! My dad suggested putting it on pancakes so Ryan whipped up a batch of pancakes and we topped them with some strawberries and the syrup. Oh my! They were so delicious! And yes, I am eighty years old and find rhubarb to be quite tasty! ;0) Sunday we both had to teach--Ryan Sunday School and me Relief Society. A special shout-out and thanks to Kristie for coming to our lessons!! Both times I've taught since having that calling I've either had my mom thanks mommy! or my mother-in-law there for support. How lucky is that?! After church we went to pick up Grandma Erm and took her to the Cooley's for dinner. Pepsi chicken was on the menu and it sure was yummy! We ended the day with popcorn, Linda cake, and watching We Bought A Zoo. That was such a cute movie! Monday rolled around and Ryan and I took advantage of a day off by sleeping in. It was fabulous! For the rest of our day we ate, went to the cemetery, and hung out with family. I'd say it was a pretty great weekend!

A Crazy Life

Yes we're still alive but so crazy busy that I have about a million things on my to-do list every day it seems. Since I last posted we've celebrated 3 months of marriage, 100 days of marriage, Ryan's birthday, Easter, and done a lot of other things. I'm hoping one day soon I get to catch up on all this and document it with a couple photos. Until then my blog readers...we're still happily married and loving life! Even if it's full, full, full!!!

10 December 2011

In a simply beautiful sealing ceremony, Ryan and I were joined for time and all eternity on Saturday 10 December 2011 in the Logan LDS Temple. Here's to forever babe!!!